Two other braves who had followed Shoz-Dijiji overheard. One of them was Gian-nah-tah.
“Shoz-Dijiji goes with Geronimo to the camp of the enemy,” announced the Black Bear.
Gian-nah-tah and the other warrior also announced their intention of accompanying the War Chief, and in silence the four started off single file down the rugged mountains with Geronimo in the lead. There was no trail where they went; and the night was dark, yet they skirted the edge of precipice, descended steep escarpment, crossed mountain stream on slippery bowlders as surely as man trods a wide road by the light of day.
They knew where Crawford’s camp lay, for Gian-nah-tah had been one of the scouts who had followed the victorious enemy; and they came to it while there were yet two hours before dawn.
Crawford had made his camp beside that of a troop of United States Cavalry that had been scouting futilely for Geronimo for some time, and in addition to the Indian Scouts and the cavalrymen in the combined camps there were a number of refugees who had sought the protection of the troops. Among them being several Mexican women and one American woman, the wife of a freighter.
Never quite positive of the loyalty of the Indian scouts, Crawford and the troop commander had thought it advisable to post cavalrymen as sentries; and as these rode their posts about the camp the four Apaches crept forward through the darkness.
On their bellies, now, they wormed themselves forward, holding small bushes in front of their heads. When a sentry’s face was turned toward them they lay motionless; when he passed on they moved forward.
They had circled the camp that they might approach it up wind, knowing that were their scent to be carried to the nostrils of a sentry’s horse he might reveal by his nervousness the presence of something that would warrant investigation.
Now they lay within a few paces of the post toward which they had been creeping. The sentry was coming toward them. There was no moon, and it was very dark. There were bushes upon either side of him, low sage and greasewood. That there were four more now upon his left than there had been before he did not note, and anyway in ten minutes he was to be relieved. It was this of which he was thinking—not bushes.
He passed. Four shadowy patches moved slowly across his post. A moment later he turned to retrace his monotonous beat. This time the four bushes which should now have been upon his right were again upon his left. His horse pricked up his ears and looked in the direction of the camp. The horse had become accustomed to the scent of Indians coming from the captives within the camp, but he knew that they were closer now. However, he was not startled, as he would have been had the scent come from a new direction. The man looked casually where the horse looked—that is second nature to a horseman—then he rode on; and the four bushes merged with the shadows among the tents.